'Green Porno' with Isabella Rossellini

PEOPLE

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Isabella Rossellini, dressed as an anchovy, runs from a shark in Green Porno, her series of short films and book about the mating habits of marine mammals and insects.

Isabella Rossellini, dressed as an anchovy, runs from a shark in Green Porno, her series of short films and book about the mating habits of marine mammals and insects.

Photo: Courtesy, Sundance Channel

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Isabella Rossellini demonstrates shrimp sex for Green Porno, her series of short films, and now a book, about insect and marine mammal mating habits.

Isabella Rossellini demonstrates shrimp sex for Green Porno, her series of short films, and now a book, about insect and marine mammal mating habits.

Photo: Courtesy, Sundance Channel

'Green Porno' with Isabella Rossellini

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Anchovies like orgies. Garden snails are sadomasochists. Earthworms are hermaphrodites who make babies by mating with everybody.

There's a lot of hot sex underwater and in the dirt if you know where to look, according to actor and model Isabella Rossellini, 57, whose latest project is "Green Porno," a series of short films and now a book, in which Rossellini dresses in paper costumes to demonstrate the peculiar mating habits of bugs and sea creatures.

"I didn't know it was common for fish to change gender, or that they have such unusual sexual behavior," Rossellini said in a telephone interview from her home in New York.

Rossellini, daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and film director Roberto Rossellini, will be in San Francisco on Thursday to discuss her Webby award-winning "Green Porno" series and book at 8 p.m. at the Herbst Theatre, as part of the City Arts & Lectures series.

"Green Porno" evolved after Rossellini responded to Robert Redford's call to artists to create environmental shorts for the Internet in conjunction with his Sundance Channel. Since 2008, Rossellini's two-minute cartoon-style films have drawn 5 million Internet hits and won two Webby Awards - for best original experimental film and best solo acting monologue.

Rossellini says she is having fun with the project, but is also infusing her work with environmental warnings against overfishing. She currently reads Darwin, has a passion for bird watching and is taking biology courses at New York University in pursuit of bachelor's degrees in art and science.

Her fascination with insects started when she bought a book to learn how to kill the aphids that were ruining her roses. She was astonished to learn they reproduced sexually or by cloning, and then studied which bugs kill aphids. She fell into a secret, sexy microcosmos.

She had just written a surrealist film tribute to her father, "My Dad is 100 Years Old," and played every role in the 2005 movie besides her father, including directors Federico Fellini and Alfred Hitchcock, who talk with the elder Rossellini about cinema. With "Green Porno," she finally became a director.

"The public might sum up my life to 'Blue Velvet' and Lancome, but between that and 'Green Porno' is a span of 30 years," she said. "I don't think about how people perceive me; I just figured it was funny to see a middle-aged woman dress up like a shrimp."

There is something charming about watching Rossellini get her head bitten while mating with a praying mantis, or as a squid blinking colors at night to attract a lover.

Each of the 18 films, and the pages of the accompanying book, has the look of a Girl Scout craft project. The cartoon-style sets and Rossellini's outfits are made of construction paper. Strings and wires used to animate two-dimensional objects are in clear view.

"From the beginning I wanted it to have that craft look," Rossellini said, "because we had little money to make the films, but also so it would look like something you could make at school or in your basement."

Rossellini's dinner choices have changed since working on "Green Porno." She now eats seafood purchased only from local fishermen in Long Island, she said.

"I understand I can't change the world," she said, "but I want to encourage the organic industry."

Next up for Rossellini is another round of short films for Sundance, this time about sexual selection. For this project, Rossellini will emphasize animal foreplay.

"There are ones that sing, others that change their coat, and the ones that battle to attract the female," she said.

As a possible title, "Sexual Selection" has the added benefit of not scaring away advertisers.

"We thought 'Green Porno' was comical, but we couldn't get a sponsor. It was frustrating because we really could have made some money!" she said.

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